WD MyCloud Brings Personal Cloud to The Masses

WD, a part of Western Digital today announced the launch and availability of their new consumer cloud storage solution, the WD MyCloud. The MyCloud is simply put an intelligent way for users to build their own personal cloud without having to spend the money and have the expertise in building their own Network Attached Storage (NAS) and NAS applications. The MyCloud is designed to be a very simple solution to building your own personal cloud so that you can access important data anywhere you are without having to worry about a certain cloud service losing your data or having downtime.

WD provided us with a really useful chart that compares WD’s MyCloud against the public cloud solutions to give you a better idea of why MyCloud is a better solution. I personally use all of the above cloud services except for iCloud and I really do see the MyCloud as a complementary Cloud solution that makes using the cloud even safer. One of the reasons why MyCloud makes using Cloud services safer is because you can download all of your Cloud service data to the MyCloud incredibly easily to make sure that your Cloud data is backed up somewhere safe and where you control and have physical access to the data.

At WD’s event in San Francisco a few weeks ago, WD’s Scott Vouri, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, talked about the importance of having the ability to have a very simple and easy to use personal cloud. With the ever increasing mistrust of cloud services and instability of many large cloud companies (major AWS outages) there is an ever increasing need for easy to use and simple personal cloud solutions.

They also had Mikel Paris of O.A.R. talk in a video about his need for a personal cloud as an artist with his own video project and the importance of having his data backed up but simultaneously available.

We eventually got a chance to see the MyCloud in action with some mobile applications as well as the MyCloud used by a Windows PC.

In order to see how this works, we’ve included a video from WD to explain the uses of the MyCloud solution as well as how the software works.

The MyCloud drive itself will come in capacities ranging from 2TB to 4TB and is based on a Linux operating system and is powered by a dual core ARM processor from an ARM vendor we’ve never heard of before. It supports PC and Mac and is connected to a PC via USB 3.0 and to the network via Gigabit ethernet. The entire device can be controlled over the web via a laptop a smartphone or a tablet, which really increases WD’s play as a mobile and consumer oriented company. Additionally, this device requires no subscriptions in order to upload or download data to or from the drive over the internet. It also has the ability to stream or download content from the drive over the net to your mobile or desktop computing device.

As you can tell, the 2TB version will sell for $149 while the 3TB version will sell for $179, a tiny price difference for 50% more capacity. The 3TB model is the best relative value, although the price per Gigabyte is almost identical between the 3TB and 4TB models. You simply have to decide if you want 3TB or 4TB, and if you take into consideration that the 4TB model won’t be available until November, that may make your decision even easier.

Following the press conference, we got a special treat from Mikel Paris with some songs off of his new upcoming album HIHOWAREYA.